Old Snow Doesn't Die, It Just Piles Up

Snow that first fell on roads, intersections and school parkways is being trucked to parks, empty lots and open spaces across the Chicago area, creating what, to the eye of a flatlander, can only be called mountains.

Taller than the treetops in some city parks, the newly craggy landscape injects relief into Chicago's topography and transforms debris-strewn vacant lots into winter wonderlands.

But why?

Simply pushing aside the 29.7 inches of snow that has fallen in Chicago this month leads to dangerously high piles at intersections and sidewalks that are impassable to the young, the elderly, the handicapped and just about anyone without a pickax and crampons. So the city has been forced to truck the snow away, creating "many, many hundreds" of massive snow mounds.

"We put it where we can. We pile it as high as it can go, and I sure hope it melts," said Terry Levin, spokesman for the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation, only half-joking.

The rivers that course through the city's heart may seem logical places to dump the snow-- which is, after all, just frozen water.

But this being Chicago, and environmentally enlightened times, such a strategy is considered a last resort.

"There's no way to strain the snow and there's all kinds of stuff in the snow," said Levin.

In 1979, for example, when the city did dump snow in the river "somebody saw a car go in," he said. "You're picking up the snow with high lifts, there could be furniture in there-- who knows?"

Dennis Duffield, Joliet public works director, said his department dumped snow from downtown into the Des Plaines River on Jan. 3, after the blizzard. About 500 truckloads--each truck containing about 25 cubic yards--were dropped into the Des Plaines River and its tributaries.

"There was no place else to put it," he said, adding that the city has not dumped in the river since then.

Before dumping, Joliet contacted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "They said they couldn't find any rule against it," Duffield said.

Another 1 to 2 inches of snow is expected by Wednesday morning, said Robin Smith meteorologist with the National Weather Service. And all that snow may begin melting in a couple of days. Highs in the 30s are expected on Friday, with the thermometer reaching into the 40s by Sunday.

Some suburbs around Cook County are piling up snow in their parks. Evanston and Oak Park, for example, do not truck snow out of residential areas, but snow may be scooped out of downtown street parking areas to ensure accessibility.

Said Tony Speciale, superintendent of operations and public works in Oak Park, "It goes to our parks . . . some of the mounds are 20 feet high."

Chicago officials acknowledge that huge mounds of snow may harm grassy areas in parks but say they have little choice.

"Nobody is claiming it's an ideal solution to dump all the snow in the parks," Chicago's Levin said. "But it has to go somewhere."

Every fall, the city's 50 ward superintendents survey their domains, listing all vacant parcels, public and private--just in case winter decides to give residents something other than Michael Jordan to talk about.

Whether landowners are told or not, the city dumps the snow when and where it needs to.

There are few other alternatives, officials said. Periodically for the last week, the city has been borrowing some of the snow-melting machines that O'Hare used during the blizzard. But Levin rated the machines' performance as "fair."

"They work for a while, but we put them under a tremendous strain," he said, adding that they sometimes stopped working and needed repair.

A drive through Humboldt Park, with snow piled high on both sides of the roadway, evokes a drive along the twisting roads of the Rocky Mountains.

Or, at least, the foothills.

In this frozen landscape toils backhoe operator Dave Weimer of Heneghan Construction. At least 20 dump trucks an hour unload their frozen cargo, and Weimer moves the loads to the top of the mound.

"Some people think when the snow is plowed away it just sort of goes away," Weimer said. "Well, no, here's where it goes."

Orogeny is also proceeding apace in Lincoln Park, at the site of an old Chicago Transit Authority bus barn at 2700 N. Clark St. Crews have been piling snow from the 43rd Ward since last Sunday, said Tim Henry, also of Heneghan Construction.

Henry said before this winter's over, he expects the one-block-by-half-block site to be filled from end to end and piled to the brim.

In many neighborhoods, the large snow piles have become an attractive winter playground for children wanting that rare chance to sled down a big hill within the city limits or throw snowballs at each other and, sometimes, workers building the piles.

But they have also become a burden for parents, who worry that children playing near the dump sites could get hit by the heavy snow-removal equipment.

"I keep her away because it's dangerous," Humboldt Park mother Ivette Santos said as she held the hand of her daughter, 6-year-old Rose Marie Joesel. "If she slips or falls, she could get hurt or killed."